Mime Time
by RockSunner
Summary: What if the Mime hadn't fallen for the projection, and didn't attack the Eiffel Tower? One-shot.


What if the Mime didn't fall for the projection trick, and didn't attack the Eiffel Tower?

 **Mime Time**

Lady Bug and Chat Noir were fighting the Mime at the base of the Eiffel Tower, trying to protect his fellow theatrical troupe members who had arrived there by bus. (Their original intention was to set up the stage and rehearse. Now they were cowering in the bus for their lives – especially the understudy mime Chris, who had lied to the lead mime, Fred Haprèle, and gotten him kicked off the show. Fred was now an akuma victim, the Mime.)

"Lucky Charm!"

Ladybug received a polka-dotted shoe box.

"A shoe box? Great. There better be some explosive boots in there or something," said Chat.

Ladybug scanned around for things to use. Several objects lit up in her imagination.

"Of course! We have to make him really angry! Blow his fuse!" Ladybug told Chat Noir.

 **"** You don't think he's angry enough?" asked Chat.

"Chat Noir, you're good at annoying people, do your thing!" said Ladybug.

"Hey!... That is true," said Chat Noir.

Chat raised his staff and ran to fight the Mime, calling out silly taunts like "Hey Mime, cat got your tongue?"

Ladybug ran to the acting troupe's bus and removed the glasses of Sarah, the director. "Gotta borrow these."

She grabbed a small Mime poster from the window inside the bus. _"_ A box, a magnifying glass, some light..."

She ran to the front of the bus to use the headlights for a projection beam."Voila! A homemade projector."

This was all quite impractical (given the low intensity of the headlights, the brightness of the day, and the limited transparency of the image) but the magic of the Lucky Charm was making it work.

"Hey, Mime! Nice poster, don't you think?" called Ladybug.

The Mime was engaging Chat Noir, his invisible sword versus Chat Noir's unbreakable staff. He looked at a huge promotional image for the show, projected up on the Eiffel Tower. He was almost stupid enough from rage to attack it directly... but not quite. He looked away from the projection and found the source – the box held by Ladybug. He scowled.

The Mime threw back Chat Noir with a mighty blow against his staff. The akuma mimed a javelin. He threw it with full force at Ladybug.

Ladybug was concentrating on holding the image steady, looking up at it and not at the Mime. She heard a swishing sound but couldn't see the weapon to dodge it. It pierced through her side. She went down, and the pinhole projector dropped. The image on the Eiffel Tower was gone.

The Mime nodded to himself in satisfaction.

"No!" shouted Chat Noir.

Chat Noir attacked with wild ferocity, snarling and clawing at the Mime, not giving him a chance to set up any more of his invisible weapons. He pinned the Mime down, grabbed his hat, pulled the photo of Fred's daughter Mylène out of the lining, and tore it in two.

The purple-black butterfly came out. The Mime collapsed and purple energy came out of him in clouds, turning him back to Fred.

Chat Noir wasted no time thinking about catching the akuma first. He ran to Ladybug, who was bleeding badly and going into shock.

Chat put the shoe box into her hands. "Can you do this? You'll be healed if you do."

With her last strength, Ladybug threw the box into the air, calling out, "Mirac..."

Ladybug had no breath to complete the charm. The box fell back to the ground.

Chat Noir threw the box up himself. "Miraculous Ladybug!"

Still no good. He wasn't Ladybug.

The earrings were down to two spots, draining faster than usual because of the wound. There was one last desperate chance.

"Claws in!" said Chat. He took the earrings and put them on. Ladybug had told him they attached by magic without the need for piercings.

Ladybug detransformed to Marinette, and her bleeding got worse without the suit to grant limited invulnerability. He didn't want to test whether he could bring her back from death.

"Tikki, spots on!"

Manbug, as he dubbed himself, was now in a red-spotted costume, but only seconds of energy were left because the kwami was depleted of energy after granting another transformation after a Lucky Charm. He threw up the box and again invoked, "Miraculous Ladybug!"

At last the charm worked. It didn't require extra energy because it powered itself from the Lucky Charm object. Magical swarms of ladybugs flew out, repairing everything.

Marinette was healed. She looked up into the eyes of Adrien; he was timed out and detransformed.

"Adrien!"

"Marinette!"

Adrien knelt down and held her. "That was too close. I was afraid I was going to lose you."

"What about the akuma butterfly? Is it purified?" Marinette asked.

"It's flown away. There wasn't enough energy left to do that and save you," said Adrien. "We'll deal with the frozen copies of the Mime and the Mime army later."

"Let's get out of public view and feed our kwamis," said Marinette. She struggled to her feet with Adrien's help.

There were no crowds of spectators. Everyone but the occupants of the bus had fled from the akuma attack.

"If you recognize us, please don't tell anyone," Adrien said.

The acting troupe, including Fred, gave them a verbal agreement.

There were no guarantee that rumors wouldn't spread, but it was the best they could do. Adrien had a famous face, but Marinette was a relative nobody. They might be all right.

"Akuma butterflies will be loose by tonight," said Marinette. "I recommend you postpone the performance."

"I'm sorry I tried to take your place," said Chris. "I lied to you about the meeting place. I was wrong."

"I forgive you," said Fred. "By the time we re-open, we'll work out how to do the show with two mimes," said Fred.

* * *

The nearest hidden refuge to feed the kwamis was the Eiffel Tower elevator. They got in together and pushed the "up" button.

Each had a stash of spare food on hand – the kwamis ate ravenously.

"Thank you for saving me, Adrien. I... I need to tell you something. I really like... no, l-love you. I have for a long time and you never saw it."

"I love you, too, Marinette. As Ladybug..."

"Only as Ladybug?"

"You had the same strength and courage as yourself, except not around me. I only saw it from a distance when you didn't know I was there."

"I got shy and tongue-tied... but only because I was crushing on you so much."

"That's really good to know."

They embraced. At the top, they pushed the "down" button. Many kisses were shared on the way down.

* * *

They met Alya on the Eiffel Tower grounds and gave her the news that there would be no show that night.

"Mylène will be disappointed, but... hey, look at you two! You've finally hit it off! What happened?"

"A shared hiding place and some time to talk," said Marinette, blushing very pink.

"Congratulations! The ship sails at last," said Alya.

"You expected this?" asked Adrien.

"The whole class has, for ages," said Alya.

"Wow," said Marinette. "We were the only blind ones."

"Now, where's my phone?" asked Alya. "I missed getting pictures of the big Mime fight for the Ladyblog. You know, if I'd had my phone camera I would have moved in close and gotten every little detail."

"It's better you stayed safe," said Adrien. "Things were getting ugly."

"Umm... about your phone," said Marinette. "I...accidentally erased your Ladybug video on your phone, and then, when I tried to fix the problem I dropped the phone in a dumpster and now it stinks like bad, like really, really bad, and I'm sorry, so, so, so sorry. I know how much that video meant to you and I'm the lamest of friends. Lamer than lame!"

"Chillax, lady. If there's anyone on this earth who knows about your legendary clumsiness, it's me, your BFF!"

"So... You're not angry?"

"Well, you should've just come clean and told me in the first place. I'm kind of mad about missing the Mime shots. But don't worry about that other video. I uploaded it to my Ladyblog before I showed it to you."

"I'm so lucky to have a friend like you! Now that we're good, you probably don't care about the surprise I planned for you."

"Screw up or no screw-up, you know I love surprises!"

"Okay, you see that theater over there? There's something inside for you, on the stage."

As Alya walked in, Marinette said to Adrien. "I want to give her an interview with Ladybug. Want to give her an extra surprise? Let's both transform and give her a joint interview."

"That sounds cat-tastic," said Adrien. "Let's do it!"

The End


End file.
